Though Taiwan made progress in the "suffering" part of the index in 2011 from the year before, it fared slightly worse in the number of those who were classified as thriving, falling to 31 percent from 32 percent in 2010.

Compared with other countries in the region, that was on a par with Singapore, where 34 percent of respondents were considered thriving, better than Japan (26 percent) and China (18 percent), but worse than South Korea (50 percent) and Thailand (46 percent).

The survey was conducted through face-to-face interviews or via telephone on around 1,000 people per country aged over 15 in 157 countries. In Taiwan, 1,001 people were interviewed between June 15 and Oct. 6, and the poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.